Havana's move earlier this week to eliminate U.S. dollars from circulation is a tacit admission of the effectiveness of U.S. trade and travel sanctions and is the Cuban president's response to the United States, they say.
And the change comes at a time when Cuba's economy is also starting to suffer from skyrocketing oil prices and a drop in crucial foreign investment.
Cubans may still hold dollars, but to spend their money in any official establishment, they must exchange their dollars for convertible pesos -- known as chavitos or little pennies. After Nov. 8, any exchanges will be subject to a 10 percent government charge.
The decision to withdraw U.S. dollars from the economy for the first time since the American greenback was legalized on the island in 1993 followed a Bush administration directive in June that limited family visits and remittances to Cuba in an effort to dry up the supply of dollars.
Cuba watchers are expecting the number of family visits to tumble by at least 30 percent, and remittances also could drop substantially.
While these measures won't have the same impact as the end of subsidies from the former Soviet Union, which devastated the Cuban economy starting in 1990, they are still hitting home.
''That has hurt the economy,'' said Miami lawyer Antonio Zamora, who just returned from a visit to the island last week. ``No doubt, it has had a big impact.''……***
"I strongly believe the people of Cuba should be free from the tyrant," Bush told a crowd of supporters here two days before the election, winning the rally's loudest cheers and chants of "Viva Bush" -- long live Bush.
"Over the next four years, we will continue to press hard and ensure that the gift of freedom finally reaches the men and women of Cuba," he said. "We will not rest, we will keep the pressure on, until the Cuban people enjoy the same freedoms in Havana they received here in America."
The crowd packed into the Coconut Grove Convention Center cheered, screamed and applauded, waving pro-Bush signs in English and Spanish and chanting "four more years!"
Like most Republican candidates in Florida, Bush's hopes of victory here rest in large part on the support of the state's sizeable anti-Castro Cuban exile community.
Earlier speakers had fired up the audience with attacks on Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry, with one asking "who do the enemies of America favor?" and then thanking Bush for the global war on terrorism.
The president was to make three stops in this pivotal state before going to another critical battleground state: Ohio, without which no modern Republican has won the White House.
Before Bush arrived in Miami, a small army of speakers -- including Mexican-born actress and singer Lucia Mendez -- who extolled him and attacked Kerry as the crowd swelled to a few thousand.
Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen pointed to elections in Afghanistan and plans for elections in Iraq and said that Bush was committed to "help bring about that same freedom, that same democracy ... to the oppressed and long-suffering people of Cuba."***